Trafigura has applied to build a deep water port in Texas, US. The port will be able to load supertankers, supplying the very much needed oil export infrastructure to the country.
The US has been exporting crude oil since 2016 after the ban on exports was suspended, but while its production and exports are on new records, its infrastructure has not kept up.
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Namely, there are no inland ports able to fully load Very Large Crude Carriers, leaving it to be done via ship-to-ship transfers, Reuters reported. This is very important as the country is exporting more than 2 million barrels per day of crude, while its reached 11 million bpd last month, becoming the biggest producer in the world.
As Trafigura noted, the port will enable VLCCs to load cargo via a single-point mooring buoy system (SPM). SPMs can eliminate unnecessary ship traffic in inland ports, along with ‘double handling’ of the same crude oil.
The facility will include a new onshore terminal, which will be feeded by a pipeline close to Corpus Christi. The infrastructure will have a capacity of about 500,000 barrels per day.
